


Prophets and the Profane

by FrenchTwistResistance



Series: I’ve Always Been Crazy But It’s Kept Me from Going Insane [24]
Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26690551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrenchTwistResistance/pseuds/FrenchTwistResistance
Summary: Mary and Hilda have a discussion about the water heater and also not that at all.
Relationships: Hilda Spellman/Mary Wardwell | Madam Satan | Lilith, Hilda Spellman/Original Mary Wardwell
Series: I’ve Always Been Crazy But It’s Kept Me from Going Insane [24]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1597594
Kudos: 3





	Prophets and the Profane

The water heater’s been patched and might well work for another few months, but ultimately it needs wholly replaced. And ain’t that a kick in the head.

Lilith had given her report that Nicholas Scratch’s Lucifer-inhabited body was stable, perhaps even a bit stronger than before their aborted attempt at a power grab. At the end of her rolled-eyes, affected-indifference monologue, Hilda had placed a hand on her forearm, looked into her eyes, attempted to connect with her and communicate to her that she wanted to talk. But Lilith had simply put on a pair of dark sunglasses and said she had places to be.

Of course, Hilda’s known or at least suspected that Lilith’s been unhappy, unsatisfied, and unfulfilled for quite some time now. That pre-Lilith-revelation discussion they’d had about freedom and self-determination and the natural order on their trip to see the feral horses in Maryland keeps popping into her brain, especially now that she’s got more information—maybe not the complete story, but what she’s got is compelling and illuminating enough to make her think some different things—and she juxtaposes this newly known Lilith with the Lilith she’s had fun with, known intimately, seen in action. She considers Lilith’s position in Hell and what Lilith had expected and what had been her lived reality, what she had yearned for and what had been denied her, what she had been assigned to and what she is currently enduring. At least Hilda had chosen to guide and care for Sabrina. It’s not an easy task, and she wouldn’t wish it on someone unprepared for it. Especially under this specific circumstance, given the history and unspoken agreements. She can’t imagine the level of rejection Lilith is experiencing—it’s got to feel like total betrayal, a complete abandonment.

She wants so badly to talk to Lilith, tell her she’s worth more than just concubine or regent, tell her she understands her and understands why she’s done the things she’s done—even if she has only peripheral knowledge of both the things Lilith’s done and why—invite her to be her own person and assure her that she would be there alongside her encouraging her.

But because she instinctively gets her, she also gets that Lilith, to function optimally, must feel in control and do things in her own time and in her own way.

Which is the same exact reason she’s let Zelda wallow in self-loathing and self-doubt or revel in self-aggrandizement and self-satisfaction on any number of occasions. She’d known on each such occasion with her sister that any comment she could make would not sway Zelda’s opinion and had additionally known that Zelda could converse rationally only when she was not beholden to either extreme. And ain’t that a kick in the head.

Hilda also remembers a conversation with Miss Kingston: “You surround yourself with people you know won’t challenge you.” And that had hit hard and correct. But now she thinks of the converse or perhaps inverse of that. Perhaps she surrounds herself with people she deems too fragile to challenge.

Hilda would run this line of thought past Miss Kingston, but the woman is asleep in an armchair in the office.

In fact, Hilda and Mary Wardwell are the only two people awake in the mortuary right now. Most of the younger witches have retired to their beds at the Academy. Zelda Newtfoot of Ponca City, Oklahoma, is sprawled out and snoozing in the armchair adjacent to Miss Kingston. Sabrina is in her bedroom in the mortuary. Zelda has fallen asleep in the parlor with her head in the lap of her mystery girlfriend—who Hilda now knows to be Marie, a very capable witch who had aided Ambrose and Prudence early in their search for Blackwood—as she had run her fingers through Zelda’s hair soothingly and tenderly. Marie had soon after also passed out.

So it’s just Hilda trying to quiet her mind by playing solitaire in the breakfast nook, and Mary pacing the kitchen drinking black coffee.

“I’ve been thinking,” Mary says.

“Oh?” Hilda says to make polite conversation although what she’d really like to say is “oh no.” Or perhaps even “please no more thoughts tonight.”

They’re not looking at each other. Hilda is placing a two of diamonds on the ace of diamonds in the little aces attic she’s got going in this round, and Mary is pacing up and down the kitchen clutching a souvenir Mondale/Ferraro mug three-quarters full of hot, black coffee to her sternum and intermittently pausing in her circuit to stare off into a corner for a while.

Hilda’s been waiting for Mary to voice what she’s been thinking. But she perceives she must explicitly ask to get an explicit answer:

“And what might you have been thinking about?” Hilda says. She’s as intrigued as she is apprehensive about whatever Mary’s been mulling over, but she wills herself to pretend not to be and pretend to concentrate on her spread of cards.

Mary stops at the kitchen window, draws the curtain, stares out into the blackness of the night. She says,

“It’s this exorcism idea Miss Kingston proposed. We were talking about it while she helped me with the water heater. She’s honestly quite handy. I wouldn’t be surprised if she really could devise some containment device. But I’m getting ahead of myself.”

Mary drops the sash abruptly and turns away from the window, looks at Hilda. Hilda pauses, sets the cards she’s been looking at down in front of her. Mary cocks her head, says,

“Do you want me to continue? Or are you tapped out for the evening?” 

Hilda regards her and enjoys the regarding and feels guilty for having enjoyed the regarding. If Mary were just an incidental beautiful woman, she wouldn’t feel any guilt at all. But as it stands, having seen her body under an alien influence and without her consent, there’s more to it than the simple admiration of a shapely woman’s physique. Hilda must admit that Lilith had chosen well when she’d chosen Mary Wardwell’s form. She doesn’t know how exactly to articulate all this or when might be a good time to articulate all this. She knows that being so preoccupied thinking these things is a clue that she’s well on her way to being tapped out, but as scattered as she is, she wants to know what Mary’s up to, and so she says,

“Please continue.”

“Well,” Mary says, “If Miss Kingston’s really a Baptist and I’m really a Catholic, we believe Satan will ultimately be thrown into the Lake of Fire, but before that will be actively manipulating people and events on Earth to varying degrees of success, individually at first and then on a large scale as the Antichrist reigns and the Mark of the Beast becomes the main form of currency, etc. But from what you’ve told me and what I’ve picked up, Lucifer’s current plan is to completely take over the world and like… have humans as chattel or something? That’s not biblical. That’s not what happens in the End Times according to Revelation. So it makes sense that we should help you to subdue him so that he can’t completely control the world and subjugate all the humans in a way that is not outlined in canon apocalyptic literature. But also it makes sense that he should be free to cause mischief until the final judgement. So we—Miss Kingston and I—are torn about what course of action we should take.”

Hilda doesn’t get Mary and Charlotte in quite the same way that she gets Zelda and Lilith. If she gets anybody at all. There’s of course the fact that she hasn’t known them as long, but there’s also the issue of the fundamental philosophical differences. Even so, there’s still a level of understanding—some kind of connection among well-meaning heretics. And she’d like to try to bridge the gap. Hilda says,

“So you believe Lucifer should have some power but not absolute power?”

“Yes,” Mary says. Hilda’s brain is swimming with her knowledge of her own sect and the forbidden scriptures she’s often indulged herself in. 

“And you think witches draw their magic from Lucifer and the other fallen angels who followed him in rebellion and are now colloquially referred to as demons?” Hilda says.

“I think there’s more complicated stuff going on with witch dynamics than just that, but generally yes,” Mary says.

Now Hilda cocks her head, says,

“What do you mean about complicated witch dynamics?”

Mary refills her coffee cup and then plops into the breakfast nook. She blows over her mug as she retains eye contact with Hilda. And when Mary deems her coffee cool enough to sip, she does so, still staring into Hilda’s eyes. Mary says,

“Old Testament prophets and ‘witches’ are at worst narrative foils and at best different iterations of each other. They’re very difficult to distinguish from one another, if we’re being real. David, the man of God’s own heart, served and ministered to Saul who was plagued by demons and sought out witches for understanding. Miss Kingston also brought up that there’s the issue of Ezekiel’s Wheels, which are very bizarre and could be perceived as space aliens. Overall, Old Testament prophets are very weird, are subjected to the weirdest circumstances, do the weirdest things. So. Miss Kingston and I have come to the conclusion as devout Baptists and Catholics respectively, that Predestination is real, and we don’t know exactly what’s happening, but we owe it to the unsaved masses of the world to do what we can.”

“And what is ‘what you can’ exactly?” Hilda says.

“That remains to be seen,” Mary says.


End file.
